Saltasaurinae

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Saltasaurines
Temporal range:
Ma
Life restoration of Saltasaurus, the type species
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Clade: Dinosauria
Clade: Saurischia
Clade: †Sauropodomorpha
Clade: †Sauropoda
Clade: †Macronaria
Clade: †Titanosauria
Family: †Saltasauridae
Subfamily: †Saltasaurinae
Powell, 1992
Type species
†Saltasaurus loricatus
Bonaparte and Powell, 1980
Genera[3]

Saltasaurinae is a

sauropods known from the late Cretaceous period of South America, India and Madagascar
.

Description

Size of Saltasaurus compared to a human

Saltasaurines are relatively small sauropods with the general body shape of a small head, long neck, four limbs, and a long tail. They range from the small Ibirania at around 5.7 m (19 ft), to the larger Neuquensaurus at 15 m (49 ft).[1] A currently unnamed fragmentary sauropod from Madagascar may turn out to be a saltasaurine longer than Neuquensaurus. The weight of saltasaurines is very light compared to that of some of the largest dinosaurs. Thomas R. Holtz Jr. found the genera range from around 7,000 to 21,000 kg (15,000 to 46,000 lb), with Saltasaurus and an unnamed genus on both extremes, respectively.[4]

Saltasaurinae is the only known group of sauropods found with armour from almost every

theropods like Abelisaurus and Carnotaurus. Saltasaurine armour has led to controversies; in 1929, the paleontologist Friedrich von Huene named the genus Loricosaurus for armour he thought to be from ankylosaurians. These bones were found to have similarities to those later discovered on sauropods like Saltasaurus and Neuquensaurus, and as such, Loricosaurus may be the same as one of the other genera.[4]

Age and distribution

Saltasaurines lived in the late

Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event, around 66 million years ago.[4]

The subfamily Saltasaurinae is known almost completely from the Southern Hemisphere with South American forms. Jainosaurus and Abditosaurus are two of the only definite saltasaurines from outside the Southern Hemisphere and is two of the only ones from outside of South America.[4]

Classification

In a 1992 study on

Titanosauridae (a family now considered invalid). He found many features uniting the group, consisting of the type genus and Neuquensaurus.[5] This group was later supported and defined by Salgado et al. (1997). They defined the subfamily as "the clade including the most recent common ancestor of Neuquensaurus australis, Saltasaurus loricatus, and all of its descendants". They conducted a phylogeny and found that the subfamily was sister to Alamosaurus and only included Neuquensaurus and Saltasaurus.[6] Paul Sereno defined it in 1998, unaware of Salgado's work and gave it a new definition as a stem clade. His definition was "All saltasaurids more closely related to Saltasaurus than to Opisthocoelicaudia".[7] In 2003, Jeffrey A. Wilson and Paul Upchurch elaborated on this definition to "all Saltasauridae more closely related to Saltasaurus loricatus than to Opisthocoelicaudia skaryzinskii".[8]

Bones of Rocasaurus

Below is a cladogram by Villa et al. (2022), from the description of the European saltasaurine Abditosaurus.[3]

Saltasauridae

References

  1. ^
    S2CID 251875979
    .
  2. S2CID 213645743
    .
  3. ^
    S2CID 246650381
    .
  4. ^ a b c d Holtz, Thomas R. Jr. (2011) Dinosaurs: The Most Complete, Up-to-date Encyclopedia for Dinosaur Lovers of All Ages, Winter 2010 Appendix.
  5. ^ Powell, J.E. (1992). Sanz, J.L.; Buscalioni, A.D. (eds.). "Osteologia de Saltasaurus loricatus (Sauropoda - Titanosauridae) del Cretácico Superior del noroeste Argentino" [Osteology of Saltasaurus loricatus (Sauropoda-Titanosauridae) of the Upper Cretaceous of Northwest Argentina] (PDF). Los Dinosaurios y Su Entorno Biotico: Actas del Segundo Curso de Paleontologia in Cuenca: 165–230.
  6. ISSN 0002-7014. Archived from the original
    (PDF) on 2012-03-09.
  7. ^ Sereno, P.C. (2005). "Taxon Saltasaurinae". TaxonSearch. Archived from the original on 2015-04-02.
  8. S2CID 53997295
    .
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Saltasaurinae&oldid=1220726683"